Alaska: the stakes were enormous: the fight over what to do with the federal land would consume more than a decade and would quickly became a national one. ibid.
Alaska: the National Park system with forty-seven million acres added to its care had suddenly more than doubled in size. Within those additions were seven brand new National Parks. ibid.
Mount McKinley National Park which had been in existence since 1917 was also affected by the Alaska Lands Act. ibid.
More and more historic sites were saved. ibid.
Within only a few years the wolves were thriving, part once more of the entire Yellowstone eco-system. ibid.
The Park [Yellowstone] is just a howling wilderness of three thousand square miles full of all imaginable freaks of a fiery nature. Rudyard Kipling
Now I know what it is to sit in throne amid the clouds of sunset. Rudyard Kipling
The Wilderness Society – Reasons for a Wilderness Society: Primitive America is vanishing with appalling rapidity. Scarcely a month passes in which some highway does not invade an area which since the beginning of time had known only natured modes of travel; or some last remaining virgin timber tract is not shattered by the construction of an irrigation project into an expanding and contracting mud flat. Wilderness Society mission statement
My friends, the vote you make in just a few moments is one you’ll have to live with and your grandchildren have to live with. There ought to be a few places left in the world the way the Almighty made them. We’ll never see a Buffalo herd again ... This is the test of conservation in your Congressional career – this will be the most important vote you will cast. Morris K Udall
... the said State shall accept this grant upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time. 38th United States Congress: Session 1 1864
’Tis bad enough in man or woman
To steal a goose from off a common;
But surely he’s without excuse
Who steals a common from the goose. Anonymous, cited Carey’s Commonplace Book of Epigrams 1872
The Yellowstone Expedition. Explorations in a New and Wonderful Country. Description of the Great Falls of the Yellowstone. Volcanic Eruptions, Spouting, Geysers etc. Virginia news headline, Langford’s confirmation
The National Parks seem destined to play a role in satisfying the longings of the people. Stephen Mather
A very desirable objective of our citizenship: getting to know their own country better. And the more they see of it the more they will realise the privileges that God and Nature has given to the American people. Franklin D Roosevelt
Every year ought to be National Parks Year ... The country belongs to the people; they are not for the rich alone. Franklin D Roosevelt
The development of our National Parks system over a period of many years has not been a simple bed of roses. It has been a long and fierce fight against many private interests which were entrenched in political and economic power. Franklin D Roosevelt
There is nothing so American as our National Parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of the great human principle. Franklin D Roosevelt
Our National parks are not only our best idea, but our highest ideal of what it means to live with an enduring grace that will survive us. Terry Tempest Williams
We need to have these places. Nevada Barr, former ranger
Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks? Do you want these wild splendors kept intact for your kids to see? Then watch out for the Army Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation – because right where the scenery is, that’s where they want to build dams. Bernard DeVoto article
June 30: This was the most exciting day of my life! My Dad and I climbed up a glacier. A whole family of Mountain Goats came within about three feet of me! Will’s diary
I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The ‘cellar’ was tolerably well lighted up. For a mile and a half in front of us and half a mile on either side, the floor of the abyss was magnificently illuminated; beyond these limits the mists hung down their gauzy curtains and cast a deceptive gloom over all that made the twinkling fires in the remote corners of the crater seem countless leagues re moved – made them seem like the camp-fires of a great army far away. Here was room for the imagination to work! You could imagine those lights the width of a continent away – and that hidden under the intervening darkness were hills, and winding rivers, and weary wastes of plain and desert – and even then the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, and on! – to the fires and far beyond! You could not compass it – it was the idea, of eternity made tangible – and the longest end of it made visible to the naked eye!
The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was as black as ink, and apparently smooth and level; but over a mile square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it – imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled network of angry fire! Mark Twain, article The Sacramento Daily Union 16th November 1866 ‘The Great Volcano of Kilauea’
And I remember going to the record studio and there was a park across the street and I’d see all the children playing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead. Michael Jackson
I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that. Barack Obama
What is it about posh cunts and fucking parks? The Acid House 1997 starring Maurice Roeves & Stephen McCole & Garry Sweeney & Jenny McCrindle & Simon Weir & Iain Andrew & Kevin McKidd & Michelle Gomez & Tam Dean Burn & Ewen Bremner & Martin Clunes & Jemma Redgrave et al, director Paul McGuiganm, short story
When you’re in the parks, mum, you’ve got to live their way or die. The Grass Arena 1991 ***** starring Peter Postlethwaite & Mark Rylance & Lynsey Baxter & Marian McLoughlin & Andrew Dicks & Billy Boyle & Nick Dawney & Simon Napper & John Garrett & Brian Hall & Gerard Horan et al, director Gillies MacKinnon, John
Central Park: New York’s most famous greenspace, all 843 glorious acres of it. New York: America’s Busiest City III, BBC 2016